Thoughts, suggestions, and advice on success for managers, sales professionals and entrepreneurs.

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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

WIIFM

I am your prospect and I really don’t care about you
or your company.

I care about me.

If you’ve gotten my attention, I might be interested in
what you and your company can do for me.

Harsh but true ... if you are in the business of selling a product or service, this is the mindset of every one your prospects.

Their initial reaction to every one of your marketing and selling messages is WIIFM. What’s In It For Me?

Yes, it’s important that you believe your product/service solves a problem, but is critical that you understand if and how it solves that problem for your customers.

Understanding how your product/service directly addresses specific wants and needs for your target customer base is the basis for your value proposition ... What’s In It For Them? And, if your value proposition is good enough, people will part with their money to purchase your offering. If they can’t easily see (or can be shown) the value, then the money stays in their wallet.

The tendency is to define our value proposition based on what we think we do for the customer, but the customer isn’t concerned about what we think. Interview your customer, listen to them and learn what is important to them – and take your value proposition from that.

Typically, in marketing, your value proposition speaks to your entire universe of prospects or specific subsets of that universe. In sales, you must refine that proposition to speak directly to an individual prospect.

Each individual prospective customer cares about something in their business that they want to grow, something that they want to avoid or something that they want to solve. It is very specific to them and their current situation.

To be successful, you have to get “up close and personal” with these benefits (beyond the one-size fits all). A prospect or customer doesn’t care about features that don’t offer a benefit specifically to them and their current situation.

If, after assessing a client’s needs, you can put into words what specifically what they need to grow, avoid or solve, then they start giving you some credibility.

Once you have demonstrated an acceptable understanding of their specific want/need, then they will be open to you showing them how you can specifically address this need/want and do it for a price that is suitable for their bottom line. Now you have a value proposition that will generate true interest. They might still negotiate, but you are positioned to move them towards becoming a customer.